Next-Gen VW Golf Won’t Debut Until the End of the Year

With prototypes of the eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf now wearing only thin vinyl wraps, we believed the compact car would make its debut soon. It looks like we’ll have to wait several months to see the new car, however, and sales aren’t expected until next year. VW had planned to debut the Golf at the Frankfurt auto show in September, but the reveal has been pushed back, reports Automotive News Europe, who also state that the MkVIII Golf will go on sale at the start of 2020. Previous media reports hinted at technical glitches as being behind the delay, and VW denies that to be the case even as it says it’s working on some issues as a result of the car’s new technologies. “We think it’s better to come early next year with a full-throttle offensive,” Juergen Stackmann, the VW brand’s sales and marketing chief, told the publication. “It’s a sales decision since you don’t try to put cars under the Christmas tree when no one is paying attention.” A VW spokeswoman confirmed to Automobile that the Golf will be revealed by the end of the year. The automaker has yet to determine specific timing for the Golf’s market launch in North America. Whenever it lands, expect freshly designed lighting elements and perhaps bigger exterior and interior dimensions. Volkswagen will show the production ID hatchback at the Frankfurt show instead. That fully electric hatch debuted in concept form in 2016 at the Paris auto show, and when it enters production, it will be the… [Read full story]